


and a guardian angel always near

by kyrilu



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-01-27 00:11:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1707671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The minute Matthew receives the morning paper beside his food tray, he schedules his escape for that night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry, guys - I'm abandoning this.
> 
> I feel like I already wrote the post-S2 longfic story that I wanted to tell in [Mad Dog Song](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2012895/chapters/4364277).

The minute he receives the morning paper beside his food tray, he schedules his escape for that night.

The headline is trumpeting RENOWNED BALTIMORE PSYCHIATRIST DR. HANNIBAL LECTER IS THE CHESAPEAKE RIPPER, ON THE RUN. The sub-headline reads: “Two federal investigators and two unidentified bystanders fatally injured; FBI’s Most Wanted List is offering reward.”

Printed beneath the headline is Hannibal Lecter’s face, and a woman that the caption names as “Fellow psychiatrist Dr. Bedelia du Maurier is believed to be accompanying Lecter; she is wanted by the FBI for harboring a fugitive.”

His hand tightens into a fist, and he thinks, _I should’ve gotten him._ He knows that Graham was one of the wounded federal investigators before he finishes reading the articles.

With a hollow feeling at the pit of his stomach, Matthew starts to trace an invisible route of Baltimore’s hospitals on the side of his wrist. The ones where the FBI will be crawling around - crowding the parking lot with unmarked cars - that’s where he’ll be.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s the stupidest thing in the world: to imprison someone in a place that they know inside out, a place where Matthew Brown once held the keys. He gets out, swiftly picking the lock with a personally crafted piece of metal. He knows the cameras’ blind spots; he knows where to go. The guy who’s replaced him is busy reading - what an idiot; Matthew was always ready and alert when he was on his night shift. Watching Will Graham with half-lidded eyes.

There’s an emergency exit, which has an alarm that he disarms with the remembered keycode, his fingers flying over the pad.

He’s dressed in a stolen security guard uniform, taken out of the employees’ locker room. He has another guard’s wallen with him, too, palmed when his replacement had escorted him down the hallway. he wallet has the man’s credit card, a driver’s license, a picture of a little blond girl, and, fortuitously enough, forty dollars in cash (plus a stray seventy-three cents in coins).

The security guard’s cap is pulled down halfway over his face. Later, when the camera footage is reviewed, they’ll see the shape of his smirk underneath the brim.

 

* * *

 

Matthew takes the bus, and then he takes a subway, and it’s finally the third hospital he visits when he strikes gold. The press hasn’t seemed to figure out that the Chesapeake Ripper survivors are here - which is good, because while Matthew’s always been someone who reads newspapers, keeps up with local crime, he thinks many of them are simply bitter critics, who can’t understand art if it’s looking at them in the face.

He’s pleased that his security guard get-up passes at the hospital; nobody stops to give him a second look. He promptly ditches the uniform in favor of a doctor’s coat snatched out of a supply closet. There’s a mirror in the closet, above a sink - Matthew adjusts a stethoscope around his neck, looks in the mirror, and sees a ghost of smile drift on his mouth.

He can be very good at being unnoticeable. There’s something easy about blending into the hustle and bustle of a hospital. Gurneys and wheelchairs and scrubs-clad, coat-clad, gown-clad people careen past, an ocean that he can slip into like a tide.

He takes down a medical chart on the walls, thumbs through. They’re not as idiotic as to put Graham’s real name, but it lists ages and injuries, and he can guess how Lecter got him. The Ripper likes knives - the Ripper is an expert at drawing blood with a blade, the exact opposite of Matthew, who likes the noise and push of guns.

Two security guards let Matthew into Graham’s room. Matthew greets them politely, doesn’t bother with an explanation, but carries himself with intent, with duty, a doctor about to do a check-up of a patient.

He finds Will Graham lying prone on a hospital bed, breathing slowly.

It’s as if the room is a cloud. White walls, white gown, white bedsheets, white curtains on the open window. Matthew goes to the last, feels the wind on his face, and smells the rain from the previous nights. If you look at the sky at the right angle, you might see a trace of a rainbow, faded red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet through an invisible prism of light.

Matthew walks over to Graham’s bedside.

He takes Graham’s hand loosely, fingers on fingers on the bedsheets. He has the urge to peer at Graham’s wound, to redress it, but he stifles it. He doesn’t want to wake Graham. Instead he distracts himself with the static rainbow outside. There’s no view of the sky at the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

Eventually - Matthew doesn’t know after how long, maybe an hour or so - Graham’s thumb twitches against Matthew’s palm, and he knows that Graham’s awake.

Graham’s eyes are a wide bleary blue, full of familiarity and fear and confusion all at once. He says, with a voice hoarse with a coarse exhaustion, “What--?”

Matthew smiles, twitches the stethoscope from his shoulders in a careless arc. It catches the light with its silver sheen, though it’s not as colorful as the outside rainbow. He says, “Long time no see, Mr. Graham.” _Look what he did to you_ , he doesn’t say.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Graham says. “What are you doing here?” It sounds like he’s fighting to keep the calm and control in his voice, but it’s half-hearted, heavy.

“Somebody needed to come,” Matthew says simply, glancing at their joined hands. Will hasn’t shaken his hand of, or maybe he’s too weak or numb to bother. “You got hurt. I’m your orderly. It’s my job.”

He can’t help keeping the present tense. He looks at the empty room, and feels the wind.

“They’re going to catch you again,” Graham says thickly.

“I know.” He just wanted to see Will.

Graham looks startled at the admission, at something on Matthew’s face, but his expression smooths over. He asks suddenly, “Where is she?”

“The other ‘fatally injured’ people?” Matthew says.

“Abigail,” Graham says. “Abigail Hobbs. Her - her throat was…”

Matthew recalls the medical chart. “A college age girl, right? She’s a floor above you. She was critical, but she stabilized in time due to a blood transfusion.” He muses to himself: The Minnesota Shrike’s daughter. Graham keeps interesting company.

Relief blossoms on Graham’s face, manifesting in the form of a shaky smile. “Alana?” he says. “Jack? Are they here?”

Alana Bloom. One of Graham’s visitors at BHSCI. Matthew screws up his eyes and thinks. “Not stabbed,” he says, remembering. “She’s good. Broke some bones, but she’ll live. And that FBI agent - he was stabbed, but got through it, too.”

Then, softly, Graham murmurs, “Hannibal…?”

“On the lam,” Matthew says. “With a woman named Du Maurier.”

“Her,” Graham says, quiet. “You know her. She visited me.”

“And set all the alarms blaring off, yeah,” Matthew says with a wry smile. He had to frisk Graham afterwards.

Graham’s hand tightens around Matthew’s. The pain in his eyes is there, plain, not hidden behind a mask of imagination.

Matthew says, realizing, “He wanted to take you with him. But it was partly a set-up on your part, wasn’t it?”

And Graham laughs. “He implied that I was Judas, same as I heard you had implied that he was. It seems like we all seem to betray each other, some time or another.”

That pain again.

Matthew remembers: Crawford walking away from Graham at the hospital, in chains - he doubts him. He remembers Alana Bloom dong the same. And of course, Hannibal Lecter, at the center of everything. Matthew closes his eyes in a brief spasm of grief: he knows what it’s like to be left behind. There was once a teacher who left him, making Matthew nothing but a facade of imitation, unfinished tattoos and promises on his chest. So he stumbled onto Graham later, and it’s okay, even if Graham doesn’t look back at him, it’s okay.

_Can I still become, Francis? You said I was going to._

No: Matthew couldn’t even kill Lecter for Graham. He knows that he got Graham fucking gutted. He knows why that long ago self-styled Dragon abandoned him, and why Graham won’t look at him the way he wants him to.

The soft way their hands are pressed together almost hurts.

He says, his mouth moving to speak almost inaudibly, “Mr. Graham?”

“Matthew?”

The way Graham says his name is hesitant, wary, purposely targeted to be familiar and careful. As if Matthew’s a dangerous animal. Matthew just smiles anyway.

“Just go back to sleep. Nobody’s going to hurt you while I’m here.”

 

* * *

 

If this story goes the same way as another universe, if Freddie Lounds wasn’t in FBI protection at the moment, she’d be in this hospital room.

She would capture a photo of the bedridden and bandaged sleeping Will Graham. Matthew Brown would be holding his hand, slumped against the bed in a tired slumber, his hair falling over his eyes, his stolen doctor coat wrinkled, and the wind fluttering the white curtains behind them.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack Crawford enters the privacy room with his dark blue suit collar turned up, as if he could hide the bandage there. Matthew’s eyes pass over it lightly, and he says, “You’re in a better condition than him.”

Will Graham, as far as Matthew knows, is still recuperating at the hospital. Last week, Matthew had been swiftly hauled back to BSHCI once a nurse came into the room, didn’t recognize him, and alerted the guards on duty. Matthew hadn’t resisted, only offered Graham a flicker of a smile - _get well soon, Mr. Graham_ \- before they took him away.

“As we both very well know,” Crawford says, “Hannibal Lecter is a tough customer.” He has a small smile on his face, as if he’s sharing a private joke. Matthew doesn’t know how to read it - what this man who shot him, is thinking. 

“But then,” Crawford adds, “you were aware of this before the FBI. As well as Will Graham.”

Matthew wants to lean back, smirk, like a cat on its haunches, but he can’t do that restrained. Because of his escape, Matthew is bound in a straitjacket. His replacement didn’t quite do the straps right: it chafes on his forearms. He does manage a smirk, though, and says, “He didn’t tell me to do anything, Agent Crawford. Do I need my lawyer right now?”

Crawford’s eyes narrow, he’s about to speak--

Coldly, Matthew interrupts, “Don’t you dare say what you’re going to say next. That would be illegal. Wouldn’t want you to lose your job. I think Mr. Graham likes you.”

“You don’t think very highly of me, Mr. Brown,” Crawford says, with raised eyebrows.

“You didn’t believe him for ages,” Matthew says. “It’s only natural that I’d...doubt. But I can listen, Agent Crawford. You have a proposal for me, don’t you? I don’t think you’d be here to admonish me on my temporary vacation, after all.”

Crawford nods, slowly. He casts Matthew a long, measuring expression. He’s sharp for a little bird; Matthew will have to be careful with this one. He says, “You’ll discuss this through your lawyer soon, but I’m here to inform you that the charge of first degree murder of the judge has been dropped. We found a piece of him in Dr. Lecter’s basement freezer.”

It’s almost funny. The disgust on Crawford’s face is evident.

He continues, “The charge of attempted murder of Dr. Lecter has also been dismissed, seeing as it seems he won’t be appearing in court any time soon - except for his own trial, if we’re lucky.”

Matthew has expected as much. He shrugs, a twitch of movement under his straitjacket, and says, “So?”

“So,” Crawford says, “you plead guilty for the remaining charges. The first degree murder of Andrew Sykes. And your little trick there with the fire has been downgraded to manslaughter.”

This is serious, then, the FBI lowering the murders of their own from manslaughter - it looked like they were going to prosecute it as malicious. But in Matthew’s case, it doesn’t make much of a difference. He’ll be insisting on not guilty by reason of insanity when it comes to whatever charges levied against him, and with his past history of institutionalization, fully expects to land himself back in a mental hospital for an indeterminate amount of time. He’ll do the time. He’s done it before. Hospitals are nothing but home to him, no matter what side of the bars he’s on.

Before he can say as much, Crawford tells him, “If you’re institutionalized, Mr. Brown, we can guarantee any choice of where you’d like to stay in Maryland. Any psychiatric facility of your choosing, within reason.”

It’s a nice touch. Matthew pauses, mulls it over. Here. He’s going to stay here, where he worked, where he knows every procedure and ward and corridor. Where he attended to Will Graham. Where he’s escaped once and can escape again - they’ll have to take off this straightjacket sometime. If he just goes to trial without the FBI’s promise, there’s a chance that he’ll be sent elsewhere, marked as a high security risk at BSHCI…

“What do you want?” Matthew asks. He’s not agreeing to anything yet. He wants to know the terms.

“You tell us _exactly_ what happened when you were about to crucify Hannibal Lecter.”

Matthew sighs. It was an interesting idea - and he thought that Crawford was going to ask him about that Dragon of his past - but no. He’s no rat. “I can’t do that, Mr. Crawford. You know why I can’t.”

It’s not as if the confrontation amounted to solid evidence - Lecter never explicitly confirmed nor denied anything that Matthew had said. He won’t be much use to the FBI.

“Mr. Brown,” Crawford says, “you’re going to prepare us a statement. You’re not going to be subpoenaed to testify on the stand. There’s allowances for…”

“Give him immunity,” Matthew says abruptly.

“I can’t,” Crawford says, his mouth a thin line. “Bureau politics. We were in a tight spot with certain authorities that night, when Lecter attacked us and got away.”

“You do realize what you’re asking me,” Matthew says, soft. “Now, _this_ is illegal.”

“This is a win-win situation. We get our information on Lecter. You get to stay at the psychiatric hospital of your choice. And he walks.”

“Unless I get caught,” Matthew says. “Then it’s over for all of us. Does he know about this little arrangement, Agent Crawford? Do you _really_ trust me with his freedom?”

“If they have reason to believe he sent you, they’re going to close in on him. There was a death. Randall Tier. It was self-defense,” yet Crawford says it with a tinge of doubt that makes Matthew’s eyes widen, “but another incident would bring up red flags. Another incident could be misconstrued.”

 _He killed someone._ He did it. The knowledge makes Matthew up like he’s one of his own self-made fires. He wonders if it was properly satisfying, if it was a quarry of Graham’s taste, since it wasn’t Lecter. He wonders how the body looked like when Graham was finished with him.

He asks Crawford, “Why are you protecting him?”

Crawford doesn’t answer immediately. Then he says, “He deserves his freedom. He’s my responsibility – he shouldn’t have ended up in this hospital or the hospital he’s in now. He shouldn’t have been fucked over by Hannibal Lecter.”

It’s very frank, direct, and reveals almost too much about Crawford; there’s something dead in his eyes, eyes that were bright and crafty earlier, but have shuttered. His fingers twitch upward, as if to retreat to the wound on his neck. Guilt. And vengeance, too – he’ll need Will Graham to catch Hannibal Lecter.

“That’s admirable of you,” Matthew murmurs. He thinks of Graham, pale and bandaged on the hospital bed. He doesn’t even have to stop and think over it. This is a new game, a fascinating game, to play. He says, “Fine. I’ll do it. And there’s something else, too. I’ve got a gift in mind.”

“A gift?” Crawford repeats.

“A gift of an enemy,” Matthew says. “Another monster to chase. Let me talk to Will." 

He uses Graham’s first name with a familiarity he knows he hasn’t earned.

“Ask him why I used a gun on the bailiff. Ask him why I slip into a lisp, sometimes.” Matthew exaggerates it with a smile. “Ask him if he remembers a specific pattern – families toppling by the moon cycle – finished with gunfire and a knife and an almost absurd meticulousness. Then we can talk when he’s healed.”

* * *

 

He begins to dictate his statement out loud. 

He calls Dr. Hannibal Lecter _the Rippingman_ with an amused upturn of his mouth.


End file.
